ocean eyes
by skeptic skeleton
Summary: Brady really didn't want to see her leave, but he wasn't letting her go without a goodbye./ The night before what was supposed to be their final day together.
1. Chapter 1

**I'm obsessed with the pairing of Mack and Brady now. People think that it's betraying Raura or whatever to think that Brack is cute, but it really isn't. It's not a crime to find two characters of a movie cute together.**

**This idea came to me when watching the scene about how heartbroken Brady was at the thought of Mack leaving. It's more of a drabble than a one-shot, but…yeah…**

* * *

There were a lot of things that Brady knew about Mack. It wasn't necessarily because she confided them to him, but more that he was just really observant.

Like for instance, she bit her lip before going out for a major wave; she found it less distracting when her hair was up when she was on her board; she could be extremely girly at times, but hated being called that word like it was the only thing she was.

Other things he gathered simply from experiencing them with her. Brady was there with her on the several occasions she sat outside and watched a beach storm, entranced by the thrashing water and darkened sky; he was there when she first discovered her love for banana smoothies and chocolate covered strawberries.

There was no way he was just going to let Mack go. Brady couldn't make her stay, but the next best thing was exactly what he could do—he was going to make sure she never forgot.

Moonlight beamed down on him as he hurried across the sand, the grains spitting up behind him as he ran.

(Another thing he knew about Mack was that she hated clichés, so thinking about her reaction to something as cheesy as this made him laugh at little.)

Brady ran up the porch, breath labored and face tinted red as he gave three rapid knocks on the glass of the door.

He waited a beat before listening to her quiet footfalls as they quickly hurried from her room.

"What are you doing here?" she soon hissed at him sharply, opening the door a crack and looking at him with wide eyes.

Brady smiled, seeing moonlight illuminate her brown eyes more than her inner emotions already did.

"Do you really think I'd let you leave without saying goodbye?" he said to her quietly, his voice above a whisper, but quieter than really talking to her.

Mack exhaled silently, looking at him for a beat longer with unreadable eyes before slowly opening the door more, wincing when it creaked. The last thing they wanted was her grandfather to wake up, though she hardly doubted he would.

"What are you gonna do?" she asked as she warily trailed behind him to her room.

Brady turned to her, grinning. It was a rare occasion he ever let anyone ever see him in anything but board shorts, but there he stood in her room, on what was gonna be their last night together, in pajama pants and a white shirt, hair mused and sticking up.

"We are going to spend this last night together," he told her firmly, "and it's going to be one you'll never forgot."

Mack watched as he sat down, pulling his drawstring bag off his back and setting it down in front of him on the floor. With obvious hesitance, she sat down across from him, legs crossed.

"I haven't see this bag in forever," she said wistfully, reaching over with one hand to pull on the bright orange strings. Brady had been carrying this bag when they first met in the first days of June. Now the summer days were just beginning to simmer down into August and she was already leaving.

Brady smiled as he watched pull the top open, looking into it curiously. "It was the thing I could find to carry this," he said, gently taking the bag from her hands and pulling out three items—a small blue candle and a surfboard lighter from the tourist shop a few miles away, a mini Tupperware container, and a navy blue and sea green bracelet.

"Chocolate covered strawberries," Mack said pleasantly when he popped the lid off the container, "leave it to you to remember my favorite thing in the world."

"I was the reason you found them, remember?" Brady said with a soft smile creeping on to his lips, "that one time my parents threw a party and I convinced you to try one?"

She laughed softly, the sound ringing through the air between them. "How could I forget? You practically forced it into my mouth."

Brady winked at her, picking up one by the green leaves. "And you loved it." On his knees, he leaned over, their faces inches apart. "Now open up," he whispered softly, dangling the chocolate treat in front of her lips.

:/:

Later into the night, with the ocean scented candle flickering its flame on the bedside table, Brady ran his hands softly through Mack's hair, the braids having been ruined earlier. Said girl adjusted herself closer, her shorts ruffling as her legs wrapped around his right one.

"Why did you come here," she asked him softly, "when just hours ago I was telling you goodbye?"

Brady sighed, his arm wrapping around her midsection tightly as he told her, "I didn't want to be another summer that you would forget years later, leaving me behind."

Mack turned her head to him, doe eyes blinking at him. Brady looked at their glossiness through the dimness of the room, looking at the swirling colors. They weren't only like that, only when she was sad or mad or anything other than happy, but when they were her eyes were like marbles, Brady thought—swirling with lighter layers of brown and hazel, brewing up a storm of emotions.

She was a lot like the ocean that way. Her appearance could change depending on the way everything around her was, affecting her more than the outside forces realized.

It broke his heart that he was now one of the outside forces, inside pushing right through in the eye of the hurricane with her.

"I couldn't ever forget you," Mack whispered quietly, nuzzling into the crook of his neck, "you—you are so much more than just another summer. You changed me, in a really good way, because when I came here, I was nothing."

She looked up at him, blinking at him with her glassy eyes. "And now I feel like something."

Brady leaned down, pressing his lips to hers. "I dig you so much."

He felt her smile against his skin. "I dig you too."

It wasn't an I love you, but it carried the same message, the same meaning. It hurt a little less to know that she was leaving, when he knew that it was hurting her as much as it was him.

Hopefully, this moment could be enough to keep him close to her, somewhere in her heart or in her mind, so that Brady couldn't disappear in the depths of her subconscious, but be a conscious thought—a hope, a need, something more than just a stored away memory.

* * *

**I didn't really know how to end this, so I'll just stop there.**

**If I get enough reviews, or enough people let me know they read this and want to read more, I could turn this into a two-shot.**

**So, yeah, just review and tell me what you thought. I'm not that good at writing sad, breakup stuff, but I hope you liked it.**


	2. Chapter 2

**The majority of you wanted me to continue this, so this is for you guys. :D**

**Okay, can I just say that you guys are the best reviewers ever? I had this one guy tell me that he thought this was "adorbs" and that he watched the movie. That just kind of stunned me and made me laugh. He called himself lame but I'm just gonna tell you, any girl would kill to have a guy watch Disney movies with her. It's like the ultimate quality, just saying ;)**

**I'm already thinking of over one-shot ideas for Mack and Brady. They'll probably be like of days before the movie, like when they decided to be a couple and cutesy moments like that.**

* * *

Brady slipped out before Mack woke up the next morning. He stood over her, his backpack slung across his back with the empty Tupperware container and lighter. He left the ocean breeze candle to sit on her nightstand, half melted.

With a smile Brady bent down, slowly brushing hair from her face. Mack shifted, rolling onto her back and muttering incoherently.

God, she was adorable.

With a light kiss to her forehead, Brady whispered a goodbye to her before sneaking out the same way he had come in that night, hoping to God that his parents wouldn't be too harsh with their consequences once they learned where he spent his night.

:/:

Brady was perfectly content with letting her go with their goodbye fresh in their minds. But that nagging feeling pulling at the pit of stomach knew he couldn't do that, and he knew where she would be. She would have to be dead for someone to keep her away from that kind of opportunity.

At first he looked at her from a fair distance, her hair up, pink and black rash guard and her infamous shorts present as she held her board, nervously looking out to the waves. He didn't need to be any closer to know that her bottom lip was slightly wedged between her teeth.

"How'd you know I was gonna be here?" Mack asked, but she knew she didn't.

Brady smirked halfheartedly at her. "Please, I knew you couldn't resist waves like this."

The moment seemed pretty bittersweet to him—her last time surfing and her last time with him on her last day at the place she loved. Everything about that was wrong.

He was a nervous wreck as he watched her gather her wits and go, tiny spits of sand kicking up behind her as she hurried into the water. It wasn't that he didn't trust her—after all, her grandfather and himself had taught her the very sport of surfing, so it wasn't like she was inexperienced—but this was Mack, and sometimes she was too stubborn for her own good.

It didn't pass him that Brady was going to watch a 5"4 girl try to conquer a 40something foot wave that could very well eat her.

When John came up beside him, he seemed to have this in mind.

"I don't like the look of that sky," Mack's grandfather commented solemnly, bringing to Brady's attention the quickly approaching, dark storm clouds that brewed over the water.

Brady knew her well enough to know that no stupid clouds, or furiously waved flag by a lifeguard was enough to keep Mack from an opportunity like this.

But when he saw the huge wall of water that, in his panicked state, suddenly seemed bigger than the great wall of China heading toward the girl that completed his summer, her looking so tiny and crushable on her board that in the distance looked as strong as a toothpick, there was no hesitating when he hopped on the jet ski to save her life.

Imagine his surprise after they both resurface from the water after his heroic attempt, wet and puzzled on the shore of Wet Side Story.

Brady was thrilled for many reasons, one being that at least they weren't dead (at least, not completely anyway), and another being that Mack was with him, and just maybe this could be his chance to stop her from leaving and going halfway across the country.

This goal of his was hard to accomplish when she figured out how to leave and what to do to make that happen.

"Why do you want to leave so badly?" He asked her once when she had grabbed him to help plot on how to get Lela and Tanner together once again, "the Mack I know would never go along with something just because an aunt said so. And I know you know I'm right."

"Brady," Mack answered, her voice sounding thin and worn, "every minute I'm here, is another minute I'm not there. And when I'm there…" she sighed, kicking at the sand in frustration, "my mom is still there somehow. This wasn't how she wanted my life to go—she didn't want me trapped here in a world that screamed everything she doesn't want me to be."

Brady stepped forward, taking her hands in his. "Mack," he said softly, "you won't forget about your mom if you make yourself happy. I can promise you that, I swear."

She never did really respond to that, whether it was because she was mad or just dealing with an inner turmoil he couldn't tell you, but after that, she just seemed to come to her own realization.

And suddenly everything just seemed to point to good things for Brady. At least, as good as it can get in a sixties movie with two men in a nutshell for villains and two dim light bulb, love-struck teens for superheroes.

When they were saved and able to go home, he could tell the sadness of Mack's depart with Lela and Tanner and the rest of Wet Side Story wasn't just a front, but in fact very real. Which made him a little happier, and he wasn't afraid to admit it.

To say in the least, Brady loved happy endings, and so did Mack. He stopped her from going on what she thought was supposedly her happy ending to stay with him, her real one. (No matter how selfish that made him sound, he was quite happy of it too.)

The night her aunt left, and Mack officially unpacked all her things, Brady came over to celebrate, much like he did when he thought he was saying goodbye.

"Hey," he called out to her sitting form, seeing her bent over something on her lap sitting on the steps, "up for a little celebration?"

Mack raised her head, her hair back in its infamous while she wore her shorts and one of his shirts that admittedly looked really well on her. She smiled as she saw him come closer, a familiar drawstring bag on his back as he sat down next to her.

"Hi," she said quietly, placing her head on his shoulder. Brady leaned his against her, glancing down at her lap to see that her hands gripped a picture frame. He smiled at the picture, it must've been her third week here when that was taken—their second week together.

Sure, a week wasn't long to tell if you were made for someone, but it was long enough for them to know that they wanted them to work.

"I remember that," he told her with a gentle grin slipping onto his face. Brady reached over, letting one of his callused hands cover her slim ones around the edge of the frame. "I love the way you looked in that dress."

Mack picked her head up, rolling her eyes as he smirked at her, his light eyes glinting playfully. "  
I see the bag has made its return," she said curiously, reaching up with a hand to pull at the bright orange straps on it on his shoulders.

Brady kissed her temple before standing and offering her a hand up. "Ready for another night?"

* * *

**Again, the ending sucks. But so many people wanted it even though the first chapter was kinda lame and this one just sucks ass, so yeah.**

**I didn't really know how to do it, because everyone knows what happened after the whole surf incident thing, so I just kinda did this and something came out of it.**

**Review your thoughts on this. And just a little story update, I will be coming out with another Brack one-shot soon because half of it is already written, and it will stay a one-shot, not open for discussion.**

**Kay, bye I guess.**


End file.
